Trabecular bone of mammals, for example, must withstand the loads that arise during daily activities as well as those from trauma. Investigation of the mechanical properties of trabecular bone presents a challenge because of its high porosity and complex architecture, both of which vary substantially between anatomic sites and across individuals.
Today, osteoporosis is one major cause of fragile fractures, which is a common disease in several countries. Each year immense resources of public or private medical services are used for treatment of patients suffering from bone fractures resulting from different forms of trauma. Of course, a combination of undiscovered osteoporosis and incautious activities may more easily result in bone fractures than if a diagnosis of osteoporosis would have been made and communicated.
There exist various ways to measure and/or determine bone mass and bone density. A well known procedure is to measure the density of a bone in antebrachium by means of a Dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). However, in practice, often a great percentage of the population in a country is vulnerable to osteoporosis but is not subjected to regular medical examinations. Use of DXA is associated with bulky equipment and high costs.
U.S. 2002 196966 discloses an automated method, storage medium, and system for analyzing bone. Digital image data corresponding to an image of the bone are obtained. Next there is determined, based on the digital images, a measure of bone mineral density (BMD) and at least one of a measure of bone geometry, a Minkowski dimension, and a trabecular orientation. The strength of the bone is estimated based upon the measure of BMD and at least one of the measure of bone geometry, the Minkowski dimension, and the trabecular orientation.
A measure of normalized bone mineral density (BMD) corresponding to a volumetric bone mineral density of the bone is determined, and the strength of the bone based is estimated based at least in part on the normalized BMD. However, the method and system is associated with a heavy computational burden.